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Photo rights advocate blogger Shawn, otherwise known as discarted, recently was taking photos inside the Hollywood/Western Metro Station when two L.A. County Sheriff's approached him.
Shawn, who always wears a video camera, caught his whole 25-minute ordeal and uploaded it to YouTube yesterday (an abbreviated version is posted above), sparking off some good debate on photographer's rights vs. public safety.
According to an interview with LAist last year, the subway system's top sheriff, Commander Dan Finkelstein, said that there is no law against taking photos in the subway system. However, he did add that "since 9/11, many of the large transit agencies have grappled with that. What we have our deputies do is if someone is acting suspicious, regardless of photography, the deputy will make contact."
In this case, Officer Gylfie along with Officer Bayes made contact. Did they take it too far? We think Gylfie took it way too far when he threatened to put Shawn on the terrorist watch list. What do you think?
